BUSINESS INFORMATION - Russia Avtovaz car giant said on Monday that it plans to lay off 5000 workers from December 14

BUSINESS INFORMATION - Russia Avtovaz car giant said on Monday that it plans to lay off 5000 workers from December 14 due to struggling to overcome the serious problem of the impact of the global economic downturn.

Avtovaz added that since December 14 plants will return to full operation or full-time after surgery to reduce the work week to 20 hours from September 1.

On Friday, news agency RIA-Novosti quoted a government source said that Avtovaz was preparing to lay off 36,000 workers in December to address the decline in demand for some models. Reductions that would represent almost a third of the company's 110,000 workforce which also includes the loss of 5000 workers "white collar" in the Lada-maker, the news agency said.

Russia has a car market with the fastest growth in Europe until last year but then plunged into crisis by a decrease in domestic demand.

Avtovaz, which was founded by Fiat of Italy in the Soviet era, is a major employer in Tolyatti, a city of 700,000 on the Volga River in southern Samara region called the Italian Communist leader.